


Savior's Complex

by KingpinCobblepot (Theonlylucysaxon)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: I have been in hibernation over a year, Just to be safe bc Oswald feels pretty hopeless, M/M, Rated for Future Content, only this occasion could bring me back, tw: suicidal thoughts-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theonlylucysaxon/pseuds/KingpinCobblepot
Summary: What if Jim had found Oswald in the woods instead of Ed? What if Jim had brought Oswald home with him, and Lee was away? What if he was the one to save Oswald and Oswald was able to save him in return?  This will at times be very soft. This will also at times be very angsty. And eventually there will be sex. Enjoy the slowburn. XD
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It has been a LONG time since I wrote and shared work anywhere, but here I am. Don't be too harsh. haha This is for the foxiest wife a girl could ever ask for, and one of my favorite people on the whole of internet. Happy birthday, Liz!

The pain was everywhere. 

Something had settled into his core, setting up like ice. It froze him, weighed him down, and made his every movement ache with the numbness of the cold. He was unsure if he had perhaps died. It would make sense—that death would be this. His mother had once told silly stories of believing in an  after life , but Oswald had never put much stow in such fairy tales. After all, if there was truly a god, then why would she have died like she did. His mother. Good, kind, sweet—a sainted woman who spent her life caring for and loving him in spite of all he had ever been. No. If he was dead, then this was exactly what was to be expected. Pain. Coldness. Darkness. Emptiness. 

Holding her when she died had been...

He found his eyes struggling to blink open, the first real indication he might indeed have survived after all. Though just how rather astounded him. He remembered the men in the woods... He remembered killing them and then... 

There was a darkness that overcame his memories, like the haze of a vivid dream once you’ve  awaken . It was impossible for him to nail down the details of what had occurred and with every attempt, he felt himself moving further away from reality. Had he come into the city? Made it to the road and flagged someone down? No, no, someone had been there... He had helped him. Ushered him off... Held him... Carried him...

“You’re going to need to change when you feel up to it. You smell like...” Death was the word he could feel hanging in the air, and that all so familiar gruff voice seemed to shy away from it. “Like you were rolling around in sewage.” 

Jim.    
  
That’s who it had been. 

That’s who had saved him...

“Where am I?” Oswald can’t seem to move his body as he lays flat on his back. It’s like he’s being pinned down by his own physical exhaustion and soreness. 

“My apartment. I went after  Galavan and... Well, you were worse for wear.” He says it like it’s not unusual to say. He says it like it’s somehow obvious Jim Gordon would even care for a moment about Oswald’s  well being . After everything, if he didn’t feel so drained, Oswald would be able to look at the irony of it. He had spent so much time being so utterly invested in wanting to make Jim Gordon care about him, and finally here he was actually saving his life and from the feel of it, even tucking Oswald into his bed. And in the midst of this victory of all victories, Oswald felt nothing. Perhaps he never would again. His mother was gone now. What use was there for feeling when all he had to feel was pain? He closed his eyes and decided to search for sleep. 

In the darkness he created, he can still hear the world around him rustling. The bed sinks to the left. A hand rests on his shoulder tentatively. 

It’s a gentle touch, something he can’t ever remember getting from Jim. Their story is told through harshness. Through gruff words, rough grabbing, biting threats, and cold manipulations. This isn’t part of the life they have built of chasing one another in one form or another. This is something else. This is something foreign and soft, and as welcome as Oswald could never admit to it being. 

“I-I’m sorry, Oswald.” 

It isn’t Jim saying those words. It’s something inside of him. Something else that’s touching Oswald like that. A sensation that is wholly not the man sitting beside him, and he knows how hard that is for Jim to do. To let this utterly alien sensation out of himself—he's so repressed and so comfortable masking so much of himself. And this is where his uncertainty lies. What’s offering this comfort isn’t Jim. 

It’s pity maybe. 

Sympathy perhaps. 

Some kind of genuine and sincerely tender emotion which Oswald can already feel himself growing suspicious of even as he drifts off to sleep, fighting the sensation of gratitude for the fact someone was willing to say it. 

It never even occurs to him that maybe the words came from the one emotion Jim has always suppressed the most. 

Maybe they were spoken out of  _ love _ . 


	2. Chapter 2

When he wakes up the next time, it’s darker. His eyes earlier had struggled to open against the harsh light of the apartment and the sun all at once. Now there’s only a dimness from a lamp in the distance it seems like. Then he realizes it’s the sun. Peeking through the curtains. Morning looms just beyond the horizon and he wonders if he slept 12 hours or 24. Days. Weeks. There’s really no knowing, and Oswald isn’t even sure if it matters anymore. He seems to lay in the light of daybreak for what feels like only minutes before the door to the room opens, and his gaze shifts. Jim. Right, of course.    
  
“You’re up.” It’s just two words, but it feels loaded. Like he’s relieved. Maybe he thought Oswald had curled up in his bed to die like a dog in it’s last hours. Maybe he had been asleep for-- “You were out since yesterday afternoon. Was worried I’d have to get a doctor in here.”    
  
Right. Of course. How would that look? Oswald was likely wanted for the murders of Galavan’s men at the very least, and Jim was harboring him as if he were running a bed and breakfast. Hmm... Breakfast. His stomach growled at the mere consideration, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.    
  
“Oh. Yeah, uhh... Food’s in the kitchen if you can get up.” He’s paused where he was clearly walking towards his closet. It occurred to Oswald that he’s never seen Jim like this before. Pajama bottoms. A white t shirt. He looks... 

Oswald closed his eyes before he let himself finish that thought. 

“Not hungry.” He says simply. His stomach makes another noise of protest at the blatant lie. 

“You sure? You sound hungry. Besides, it’s been a few days since you’ve eaten.” 

Days. 

Okay, well that was more than he knew before. 

His mother had been dead days now. 

And yet he could still see her dying breath with every blink and hear her last words in every moment of quie—

“Let me get you a glass of water at least. And again, maybe think about changing clothes. At this rate, I’m going to have to burn my sheets.” 

_Funny_. 

Not that Oswald laughs. Not that he **can** laugh anymore. Jim managed a half smile when he said it, trying to lighten the thick tension he knows surrounds them both. Oswald closed his eyes as Jim let out a sigh and exited the room. If it was someone else, he would leave. If it was another home, another person, another circumstance. But this is Jim Gordon. The other half of his coin, as he had always seen him. Always craved his friendship because of... And this was Jim’s home which created an intimacy between them that Oswald would never admit, and yet always hate himself for savoring in such a terrible time. And his mother was gone. 

Where did he have to go?

What did he have to do? 

He was an orphan. Unloved by the world now because the only person he ever had  who ever cared was gone. Why leave? Why live? Why thrive as he once had? Perhaps he could lay here and rot away in Jim’s bed away from the world he so loathed for the rest of what he could hope would be a short life. 

“Here, drink.” He had returned, and Oswald opens his eyes to Jim with a glass of water and a straw. 

“I’m not thirsty.” Oswald says, but he can feel the weakness in his own voice. He can’t help it. He is rather shocked in this moment that Jim is actually waiting on him, bringing him a drink, making an effort to... care for him. 

“Yeah you are. Here.” He holds it out more towards Oswald, who weakly shakes his head. 

“No, I’m not. Just leave me alone.” Oswald laments as his surprise gives way to frustration and grief once more. 

“Either you’re wearing it, or you’re drinking it Oswald. Now here.” His tone is harsher—far more Jim than the other times. And Oswald can’t deny that some part of him wanted to rise to the challenge. He wonders if Jim wanted him to as well as he takes the glass from him with a small slump of his shoulders before taking a drink. But his eyes don’t betray that. He just looks stoic, nodding and walking away back towards the closet. 

He may have the worst bedside manner ever, but it isn’t lost on Oswald that Jim Gordon might just be trying to nurse him back to health. And the idea of that, is enough to break Oswald’s heart with just how futile an effort he knows it will be. 


End file.
